Free AI web copilot to create summaries, insights and extended knowledge, download it at here

Abstract

vital or is there stuff that I can delegate or move?</li><li>Opening my Task Manager</li><li>Move any tasks that I didn’t get completed to another day.</li><li>Go through the tasks that are in there for the next day. I try to ensure that I have no more than five tasks scheduled for an individual day.</li><li>However, things will change over the course of the week so if a priority suddenly needs to be dealt with the next day, what can I push back until later in the week?</li></ul><p id="c0b4">When I’m due to write the next day, I’ll select a title from my content calendar and just spend a couple of minutes outlining the structure of the piece and any key ideas.</p><p id="8403">One question that I’m often asked is why I plan my day in the evening and not the next morning. Well, the simple answer is that I’m more tired after a day’s work which means I’m more realistic about what I can achieve the next day.</p><p id="6f46">Planning my day in the morning, I’m typically more energised after a night’s sleep and overestimate what I think I can get done … so ‘tired Simon’ ends up with a much more realistic plan for the day than ‘morning Simon.’</p><h2 id="c2d3">Weekly review</h2><p id="e447">The weekly review is done every Sunday evening. Again, it is split between a “journaling” element and a planning element. The journaling element allows me to look back on daily reviews of the last week and answer the following questions:</p><ul><li>Name three big wins for the week</li><li>What was the best use of my time this week?</li><li>What is blocking my progress at the moment? What can I do to take the next step?</li><li>What was the most valuable lesson I learned this week?</li></ul><p id="423f">From there, I’ll start planning with the main question being: <i>What are the key areas of focus for the next week?</i></p><p id="a946">Similar to the daily review, I’ll go through my calendar to see if there’s anything I can delegate/remove and also start dividing up the tasks in my task management tool across the week.</p><p id="776b">It’s important to note here that nothing is set in stone. You can’t predict the future and, as said above, your priorities will change over the next week. New tasks will crop up that you’re not even aware of yet and that’s fine.</p><p id="115e">That’s what the Daily Review is for — to give you the flexibility to account for it all.</p><h2 id="8796">Monthly Review</h2><p id="1237">The slight change here is that I’ll do the Monthly Review during the day. I’ll book an hour out of my calendar to look back on my Weekly notes and use the following questions as a guide to how things have gone:</p><ul><li>How pleased am I with what I got done this month?</li><li>What was the biggest win this month?</li><li>What did I not get done this month?</li><li>What are your priorities for next month?</li></ul><h2 id="f499">Quarterly Review</h2><p id="f887">Things change again with the Quarterly Review. At the end of each quarter, I’ll try to get out of my office and take my laptop and noise-cancelling headphones off to a coffee house or a library.</p><p id="5f89">Again this will be an hour or so of me reading through the monthly notes I’ve taken to get a grip on how things have gone for me over the last quarter.</p><ul><li>How pleased am I with what I got done this quarter?</li><li>What were the biggest wins for this quarter?</li><li>What should I start doing?</li><li>What should I keep doing?</li><li>What should I stop

Options

doing?</li></ul><p id="1bde">This is the most important review for me — certainly more important than the annual review. That’s mainly because I tend to work and set my objectives every quarter. The time frame is long enough to be able to measure meaningful change, while short enough to put in place some realistic targets.</p><p id="d949">Annual objectives are very hard to forecast because, once again, things tend to change so much over a long time frame.</p><p id="4cb0">With that in mind, I wanted to emphasise the last question above: What should I stop doing? I love this question. It keeps me accountable and makes sure that my eyes remain focused on the overall objective.</p><p id="862f">There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be taking on more things, but if we take on too much, then our efforts in other areas will suffer. So, force yourself to answer that last question. What’s not working out? What’s more trouble than it’s worth? What’s taking your focus away from areas that you consider more important? What has to go?</p><h2 id="0c87">Annual Review</h2><p id="b285">Having said what I have about annual planning, there’s no doubt that an annual review is a worthwhile practice. Once again, I try to get a change of scenery. The coffee house is good again, but I’d love to get away properly to a remote location or a rented office space if either was an option.</p><p id="7e2d">Either way, I try to book a day out of my calendar to get this done, as I end up going through all of the Quarterly and Monthly reviews I’ve written up and also potentially deep-dive into some of the weekly reviews if I want to get to the heart of an issue.</p><p id="12aa">One thing to mention though is that this doesn’t have to be done in December at the end of the calendar year. Pick a time in the year that suits you best. I go with the end of the financial year, but I know people who do reviews on their birthday or the day their kids go back to school for the new school year.</p><p id="9994">Whenever it is, though, make sure you make good notes. Last year, I used the following questions as a framework:</p><ul><li>What were the six big wins of the year?</li><li>What am I most proud of?</li><li>What went wrong this year?</li><li>Where did I spend most of my time this year? Was it worth it? (<i>Taken from time tracked in Timery)</i></li><li>- What should I start doing?</li><li>What should I keep doing?</li><li>What should I stop doing?</li></ul><p id="d1f7">I’m still refining my questions, but if you’re looking to do something similar, I would highly recommend that you check out the book, <a href="https://geni.us/mq5O">Personal Scorates by Marc Champagne</a> which focuses on “questions that will upgrade your life.”</p><h1 id="aff5">One last thing …</h1><p id="2f60">Thank you very much for taking the time to read the article above — it was a bit of a long one, so I hope you found it useful. If you did, then you might be pleased to know that I’ve finally got myself sorted out, socially. You can now find me on <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/theakywrites.bsky.social">Bluesky</a> and <a href="https://mastodon.social/@theakywrites">Mastodon</a>. I’d love to carry on the conversation there.</p><p id="6f4f">If that’s not up your street, then feel free to follow me here, leave a comment or hit the clapping hands so that other people like you will find the article. Hopefully, they’ll find it useful too! It’s all hugely appreciated.</p></article></body>

The one stop guide to daily, weekly, quarterly and annual reviews

I love my review process. It’s one of the most rewarding things that I do. It forces me to slow down, evaluate the work that has happened and celebrate the wins that happen along the way.

The process is generally divided between a planning process and a review process at the heart of which are questions. I never appreciated the value of questions until I started doing regular reviews. Not only do they provide a framework to the process but a good question can provide you with an answer that is worth its weight in gold.

While the process can be used for any area of you life, I tend to use it specifically for my business and the personal roles that I base my life around. I’d love feedback from anyone who does something similar.

Daily Wind Down

I’m going to start with something that I do on a day-to-day basis, but don’t consider part of my review process.

The “Wind Down’ is largely focused around my work. It is something that I have on my calendar every day during the week and is set for the last half hour of the day (16.30–17.00) during which time I make sure I’ve responded to everything that I need to have done. Typically, during this half hour, I will:

- Check I’ve responded to all emails

- Make sure there aren’t any mentions on Slack that I haven’t responded to

- Check my to-do list to make sure there is nothing urgent that remains incomplete

The reason I mention this is because some people (most notably Tiago Forte) count this process as part of the daily review. For me, though, this daily wind down takes place at the end of the workday, before I shut down my computer.

The review process tends to take place later on in the evening, once the kids are in bed and I’m curled up on the sofa. The review is primarily based around a series of questions for each period with all of my associated answers being made in Obsidian.

Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer. - William S. Burroughs

Daily Review

The daily review only takes about 20 minutes and is designed to ensure that I’m set up and good to go the next day. The journaling part of the process follows these questions

What was I grateful for today?
What was something great that happened today?
What went wrong today?\
So what’s up? (A general catch-all question that lets me write more about my day if I want to)
What was something memorable that the kids said/did today?

Once I’ve journaled on the current day, I’ll have a quick check on what is due tomorrow. This involves:

Checking what’s on my calendar. Are my meetings still vital or is there stuff that I can delegate or move?
Opening my Task Manager
Move any tasks that I didn’t get completed to another day.
Go through the tasks that are in there for the next day. I try to ensure that I have no more than five tasks scheduled for an individual day.
However, things will change over the course of the week so if a priority suddenly needs to be dealt with the next day, what can I push back until later in the week?

When I’m due to write the next day, I’ll select a title from my content calendar and just spend a couple of minutes outlining the structure of the piece and any key ideas.

One question that I’m often asked is why I plan my day in the evening and not the next morning. Well, the simple answer is that I’m more tired after a day’s work which means I’m more realistic about what I can achieve the next day.

Planning my day in the morning, I’m typically more energised after a night’s sleep and overestimate what I think I can get done … so ‘tired Simon’ ends up with a much more realistic plan for the day than ‘morning Simon.’

Weekly review

The weekly review is done every Sunday evening. Again, it is split between a “journaling” element and a planning element. The journaling element allows me to look back on daily reviews of the last week and answer the following questions:

Name three big wins for the week
What was the best use of my time this week?
What is blocking my progress at the moment? What can I do to take the next step?
What was the most valuable lesson I learned this week?

From there, I’ll start planning with the main question being: What are the key areas of focus for the next week?

Similar to the daily review, I’ll go through my calendar to see if there’s anything I can delegate/remove and also start dividing up the tasks in my task management tool across the week.

It’s important to note here that nothing is set in stone. You can’t predict the future and, as said above, your priorities will change over the next week. New tasks will crop up that you’re not even aware of yet and that’s fine.

That’s what the Daily Review is for — to give you the flexibility to account for it all.

Monthly Review

The slight change here is that I’ll do the Monthly Review during the day. I’ll book an hour out of my calendar to look back on my Weekly notes and use the following questions as a guide to how things have gone:

How pleased am I with what I got done this month?
What was the biggest win this month?
What did I not get done this month?
What are your priorities for next month?

Quarterly Review

Things change again with the Quarterly Review. At the end of each quarter, I’ll try to get out of my office and take my laptop and noise-cancelling headphones off to a coffee house or a library.

Again this will be an hour or so of me reading through the monthly notes I’ve taken to get a grip on how things have gone for me over the last quarter.

How pleased am I with what I got done this quarter?
What were the biggest wins for this quarter?
What should I start doing?
What should I keep doing?
What should I stop doing?

This is the most important review for me — certainly more important than the annual review. That’s mainly because I tend to work and set my objectives every quarter. The time frame is long enough to be able to measure meaningful change, while short enough to put in place some realistic targets.

Annual objectives are very hard to forecast because, once again, things tend to change so much over a long time frame.

With that in mind, I wanted to emphasise the last question above: What should I stop doing? I love this question. It keeps me accountable and makes sure that my eyes remain focused on the overall objective.

There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be taking on more things, but if we take on too much, then our efforts in other areas will suffer. So, force yourself to answer that last question. What’s not working out? What’s more trouble than it’s worth? What’s taking your focus away from areas that you consider more important? What has to go?

Annual Review

Having said what I have about annual planning, there’s no doubt that an annual review is a worthwhile practice. Once again, I try to get a change of scenery. The coffee house is good again, but I’d love to get away properly to a remote location or a rented office space if either was an option.

Either way, I try to book a day out of my calendar to get this done, as I end up going through all of the Quarterly and Monthly reviews I’ve written up and also potentially deep-dive into some of the weekly reviews if I want to get to the heart of an issue.

One thing to mention though is that this doesn’t have to be done in December at the end of the calendar year. Pick a time in the year that suits you best. I go with the end of the financial year, but I know people who do reviews on their birthday or the day their kids go back to school for the new school year.

Whenever it is, though, make sure you make good notes. Last year, I used the following questions as a framework:

What were the six big wins of the year?
What am I most proud of?
What went wrong this year?
Where did I spend most of my time this year? Was it worth it? (Taken from time tracked in Timery)
- What should I start doing?
What should I keep doing?
What should I stop doing?

I’m still refining my questions, but if you’re looking to do something similar, I would highly recommend that you check out the book, Personal Scorates by Marc Champagne which focuses on “questions that will upgrade your life.”

One last thing …

Thank you very much for taking the time to read the article above — it was a bit of a long one, so I hope you found it useful. If you did, then you might be pleased to know that I’ve finally got myself sorted out, socially. You can now find me on Bluesky and Mastodon. I’d love to carry on the conversation there.

If that’s not up your street, then feel free to follow me here, leave a comment or hit the clapping hands so that other people like you will find the article. Hopefully, they’ll find it useful too! It’s all hugely appreciated.